Roger M. Wilcox's review of

The Glass Jungle

This movie is obscure enough that there wasn't an entry for it in the Internet
Movie Database until the mid-2000s. But it is, in the opinion of many of those
"elite, select few" who have seen it, the absolutely worst movie ever made.

At a recent get-together of some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000
newsgroup's regulars, one of the attendees had the chutzpah to pull out his
tape of The Glass Jungle from his Bag of Tricks. He claimed that the
video store he got it from, which was going out of business at the time, would
give anyone 10 free rentals if they could watch The Glass Jungle all the
way through and say that they liked it. No one ever got the 10 free rentals.
And I can see why.

The hero of this movie, a taxicab driver with an utterly forgettable name, gets
caught up in some kind of drug/money-laundering deal with the local gangsters.
Or maybe they're the local police looking to bust the gangsters. Or maybe
they're figure-skating transvestites from Mars. It's impossible to tell. But
whoever they are, they want the hero to — get this — drive around
on his normal cab route for several weeks while carrying five million dollars
in his trunk. Yes. The gangsters/cops/Martians want him to carry around five
million dollars, for nearly a month, until one of their operatives comes by to
pick it up. And they're willing to beat him up, kill his brother, and kidnap
his girlfriend to get him to do it.

At this point, the siren call of logic invaded my brain and I screamed, "What
the hell do you need someone to hold your money for?! Can't you hide it
someplace?!!" I should have known not to allow logic to cloud my thoughts while
watching this film. Why, if he didn't have to carry the money around, we
wouldn't have gotten to see minute after minute after agonizing minute of him
DRIVING!

Of course, the driving wasn't entirely boring. It was also annoying. The
movie's title song, which consists of howler monkeys with throat cancer belting
out "In a glass junnnnglllllllllllle!!!!" at the top of their lungs, almost
succeeded in masking the mind-numbing dullity of watching block after block
after block after block after BLOCK AFTER BLOCK AFTER FRIGGIN' GODDAMN BLOCK of
Manhattan scroll by.

Now, even the producers of THIS mindless waste of celluloid eventually realized
that you can't make an ENTIRE feature-length film out of driving scenes alone.
So, after the first 17 hours of driving scenes were over, we got to sit through
about 40 more hours of ... flashbacks. He flashes back to his girlfriend ice
skating. He flashes back to a DREAM he had about his girlfriend ice skating. He
flashes back to an LSD-inspired image of his girlfriend ice skating in a
bulletproof vest. He flashes back to every single day of his relationship with
his girlfriend, which must've lasted long enough for them to have celebrated
their FIRST two golden anniversaries some time last century. And then, he
flashes back to scenes that have ALREADY HAPPENED IN THE MOVIE!! We're getting
the same scenes TWICE! Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrggghhhhhh!!

I'm surprised he didn't flash back to himself flashing back while driving the
cab.

Finally, the flashbacks catch up with the present, and the producers have no
choice but to end this movie. They do so by having the hero drive up to the big
bad guy's mansion for the Grand Showdown Between Good And Evil™. He
defeats the villain's guards by picking up a conveniently-placed archery set,
equipped with genuine Bad-Guy-B-Gone brand arrow heads. The main villain, now
desperate, comes out of his mansion with the hero's girlfriend in tow, pointing
a gun at her head. The hero drops his bow and arrows to keep his girlfriend
alive. The villain grins maniacally, which in movie-talk always means, "He ha,
now you are unarmed and I can shoot you AND your girl! You'll never stop me! I
will rule the world! Wah ha ha ha!!"

And, suddenly, the hero reaches behind his back and pulls out a LOADED
MINIATURE CROSSBOW — which previous camera angles, shown less than a
minute ago, proved was definitely NOT there. And so the villain, staring in
open-mouthed incredulity (just like we in the audience were) gets shot by a
miniature crossbow bolt through the mouth.

This ending generated a wonderful chorus of giggles and guffaws from the crowd
assembled to watch this movie. But ... was it worth it? Was it worth sitting
through a movie more boring than Andy Warhol's Empire and more
improbable than Armageddon just to get to the most ridiculous showdown
ever filmed?

I say thee nay. Do not rent this movie. Run away from it. Fast. Gouge your eyes
out if you must, but don't submit yourself to The Glass Jungle. Your
time would be better spent watching paint crack and peel off the walls of your
local sewage treatment plant. And it would smell better, too.